Stan, what size shot do you favor in the .410, 8 1/2, 8, 7 1/2 or 7s? Its all about trade offs sometimes. Shooters want more pellets, to have a better chance for hits but the smaller the pellet, the less energy to penetrate and penetration kills Dove. I tend towards 7s if I can get them to reload with, 7 1/2 if I cant. I wont shoot anything smaller than 7 1/2s at Dove but I know many swear by 8, 8 1/2 or 9s. In a 12 you get so many more pellets to work, with even less penetration can be offset by multiple hits. No so on a .410 Im afraid. On a passing Dove you only have two thirds of his body as a target. You can hit a Dove 20 times in the rear and he will fly off to die elsewhere.
Ive done a lot of patterning of .410 loads. Ive found with the 2 1/2, 1/2 ounce load, if you drive it faster than about 1275 FPS my patterns fall off. I have had some loads which went 1350 FPS but the patterns were not at all consistent and everything has to be consistent with the .410. What I see with the 3 seems to hit that sweet spot at about 1125-1150. While slower works well in bigger bores for patterns it does not with the .410. I get too much center density with slower loads and not enough overall usable patterns. Too fast and you get blown patterns or one pattern which looks good and one which does not. Again, all about trade offs.
